Summer, but with all the babies swimming around it seemed more like Spring! I've been to Tule Lake NWR, which is very near the border of California and Oregon and is part of the Klamath Basin National Wildlife complex, twice before. Both times were during the Spring part of the Pacific Migration and there were a lot of eagles! But not just eagles, all kinds of birds and mammals and FUN!
But this time, there were a lot of the cutest ducklings!
When I was there, I thought these were some type of Merganser ducks. But I found out they are Eared Grebes which I had not seen before! Yay!
Such a beautiful and elegant mama!
And the babies though!
And oh, SO MANY BUGS! You can see them in this next photo, but I don't think they were bugging the duckies...just me.
And there were Clark's Grebes too! At least I think this is a Clark's. I wish the picture was a little bit clearer!
It's always beautiful at Tule Lake. It seems that no matter what time of day I'm there, the water is always a beautiful blue with shade of purple. Sometimes it's a perfect glass mirror and sometimes, like on this day, it's a ripply photographer and birdwatcher's paradise.
Yep. Clark's Grebe. They have darker parts on their bills and the black is over their eyes. Western Grebe's bills are yellow and their eyes are in white feathers.
And this!! This is a Tri-colored Blackbird! They look similar to Red-winged Blackbirds but are much less common. The Red-winged has a yellow stripe under their red patch but as you can see, this guy's stripe is white!
He was keeping a close eye (or two) on me!
This little guy was singing away! It was a tricky shot and I didn't get him very clear, but I love that you can see that he was singing!
A little Bufflehead! I think I saw another one too, but they were both far off shore.
Awww! A Western Grebe! Now you can see the difference!
They look like they have a flattop fade! Cute!
A Golden Eagle!! Closeup...
...and looking like it wants to eat me!
More babies!
So much beauty and peace out there! I just love it. And I got some more great shots which I shall put in the next post!
xoxo
